June already

Well, May seems to have come and gone.

My posting rate seems to have slowed to just-long-enough-to-lose-my-entire-audience.
We'll see if we can keep it from slipping any further.

We've had a lovely road trip to Vermont and back by way of Virginia, with two pooches, a now 5 month old, and for the first section of the drive, Annaliese's godmother (visiting from Germany.)
Annaliese was surprisingly good with the back seat lock-down. 3,000 miles total, in the back of the truck, one day almost 16 hours straight.

We had a lovely time. For details check with Alexe's blog, which makes this one look...bad.
Back to MS, the heat, job, building, and most recent project (not that the others have been wrapped up.)

Alexe has finished her second novel and is busy sending that out to agents. She has also started on her third, which makes for fun brain-storming conversations, and her office, which I'm borrowing today, is covered with research books and whatnot, and the new world she is constructing is slowly taking shape on the walls. Very cool.

The building is coming along. I've been hanging sheet rock, to get it out of the way and to make the place look as far along as I know it is. Visitors just aren't impressed with the progress when they can see and walk through walls. My papa made me 21 crescent windows for the top section of the second floor windows. We picked up the pieces in VT, and I'm assembling them now. I can't say how impressed I am with the quality, and precision of these windows. They come in 8 pieces (times 2 halves), and those pieces slide together perfectly. Pictures will follow on those soon.

Annaliese was happy to come home, remembered the place (which surprised me) and is getting more and more fun. (And more and more difficult, but in new ways. I can see a third difficult personality joining the fray, and my oh my.)

Against my best efforts, our house has been inundated with plastic injection-molded stuff. But when she sleeps in her swing, and plays by herself in her rolly-bouncey-seat, purist principals go out the window.

We're sleeping far more, and I'm finding it makes it harder to wake up in the mornings. Doesn't seem fair.

We're in the middle of some new real-estate dealings. True to form, we're keeping the capital investment low, and the sweat-investment likely high. That may change after we take a closer look. More details on that soon (in Blog-time.)

We have a lovely garden this year, with a much-simplified crop. 41 tomato plants, and a whole bunch of basil. We had some green fried tomatoes the other day.

I'm going to make an effort to upload some pictures. I don't know what I have on this machine, but hopefully there are some nice ones.

The darling child.
Below our new pond in VT, by the Cabin, we've put in an outdoor tub. Most incredible experience ever: fresh spring water from the pond, heated in the tub by a wood fire, incredible views and shining sun. Lovely.
A & A, my two ladies. Also lovely.

Annaliese's godfather, flown into Virginia from LA for her Christening.